


the garden

by januaryfirst (alateni)



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-25
Updated: 2019-03-25
Packaged: 2019-12-07 09:00:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18232748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alateni/pseuds/januaryfirst
Summary: in a quiet, small place, minghao sits and waits.





	the garden

It’s a quiet, small place. Hidden away from the rest of the world, but right in plain view, if you cared to look, lies the place Minghao wants to escape from. The lighting is always dark, a mix between dusk and dawn – bringing two into one. Minghao never cared to find out why, he doesn’t need to. All he did, every day, every month, is to sit and wait. And so, he does.

Sometimes it would get brighter. The colours seem sharper, the wind, stronger. Minghao would rise slightly then, looking over the small garden, and the hints of a smile would cross his face. The garden responds to him, as it always does, rustling in happiness when he walks by. In these times, the trees would sway, leaves crinkling – everything seems louder. Brighter. The dawn sunlight streaming through the cracks of the cave would intensify, until Minghao is sure it’s akin to the sun at noon. He can’t remember what that looks like anymore, but he thinks it has to be something like this.

Something like the intense light shining down, warming his skin. There isn’t much of it, there isn’t much of anything, in this place, but Minghao thinks it’s enough. Even if he can’t have it all, just having this little bit would be alright, no? It has to be. If it isn’t, Minghao doesn’t think he would be okay.

And so, he lives on. Taking what he can get. And if the sunlight decides to be a bit stronger today, then he embraces it. He walks around instead of sitting, stretches and chases what little rays shine down. He feels the grass underneath his feet, feels the water in the pond, right near the edge of the garden. He feels. And it’s wonderful.

But the brightness never lasts long.

It fades, just like always, and the dim light that returns seems so much darker. It’s always the first couple of days that feel the worst. Minghao lays down then, not having the strength to sit up. He closes his eyes, because looking over the sad, wilted garden isn’t much different than staring at the back of his eyelids. The grass doesn’t rustle anymore, the leaves turn a dark shade of brown. They never fall.

Nothing ever changes. The pool never refills, no matter how much Minghao drinks, the level never goes down. The light streaming in is always dim. Sometimes it’s brighter, but Minghao knows it’s an illusion. One that he entertains, but when it slips away and leaves him in the dimness, he knows that it’s his own foolishness that keeps the dream from coming back. Hope, he thinks, is a foolish and hurtful thing. But as it is, he can’t let it go.

Soon enough, he gets used to the dimness again. It always returns, that’s the one thing Minghao can count on, and though he should feel thankful for it, he can’t help but resent it. No matter what he feels about it though, it doesn’t change. You can’t express emotion against something like light after all. Instead, Minghao sits up, stares across the empty, dark garden, and waits. He sits, and waits, and sits some more. There’s nothing else to do. He’s tried everything he can, and even then, nothing is ever good enough. He’s not good enough. All he can do is wait.

Maybe one day he’ll figure it out. Maybe one day he’ll be able to see the light for its real, vivid self. He’ll be able to remember the sunlight, how it feels on his skin during noon. How it disappears over the horizon at night. How the night sky looks, how the stars above shine and twinkle, promising stories and secrets. That’s another thing Minghao has forgotten –true darkness.

You can’t have light without darkness. Darkness is an absence of light – but if you lived in constant dimness, what is light anymore? How can you tell what darkness is? This is Minghao’s reality.

Everything is dim, nothing changes, he sits and waits.

 

 

 

In another life, maybe things would be different. Maybe he’d see things for how they really are.

The cave would become his room, the light, his soul. In the times that the brightness intensifies, he is happy. It represents the few and rare times he’s happy. The darkness that returns becomes his sadness. The unchanging garden would become his habits, his unbreakable, unshakeable, maladaptive habits. Maybe then, he’d be able to figure it out. Maybe, in another life, he’d be able to feel something instead of waiting.

But that life is not his life. In this life, he feels nothing. He sits and waits, in the garden that is his heart, and hopes for something.

Hopes for courage to break away, to get out of his head, to realize his worth – but that’s in a different world entirely. In this world, Minghao is nothing but a still figure, sitting on the edge of his garden, his cave, his cage. The sunlight streaming in is almost completely blocked, not able to communicate with him, and he doesn’t realize that it’s trying to – all efforts diminished by the stillness, the dimness, the complete and utter indifference.

His world is nothing. It’s stillness. It’s waiting. It’s not recovery, it’s not justice, it’s not courage. Minghao doesn’t know those things. The closest he’s ever come is hope, but even then, even now, it’s foolish. He lets go. He sits. He waits.

 

 

 

The quiet, small place is his home now. He doesn’t think of leaving. He doesn’t think of much anymore. The light doesn’t change anymore. Minghao sits. Minghao waits. The pool is always still. The grass lays low, the leaves stay as they are. Minghao sits. Minghao waits. The trees don’t whisper. The rocks don’t rumble. Minghao sits. Minghao waits. Minghao doesn’t hope. Nothing happens anymore.

Minghao sits.

Minghao waits.


End file.
